Deco bottle borrowed

[Jay]

So... As I read the recent posts on this thread, about how death is a risk of losing gas that was included in a plan, this is the ad that pops up in the new version of tapatalk, between posts:

Unfortunately I will. My family is long lived!!!!

[Brent]

This thread is getting "long winded" but let me add one more piece of "trivia". Was diving Ginnie Friday PM and when I got back to the reaper sign, there was six deco bottles there. Nothing out of the ordinary at all, but given the current events, both here and at Madison a few days ago, it did make me stop and take a second look. First of all, all six bottles were either brushed AL or yellow and I believe they all had some sort of deco label on them. Different regs but from ten feet away, they all pretty much looked the same so what's the point here? Could a "newbi" grab a wrong bottle? Quite possibly. Could a "free diver" get to those bottles? No problem at all for those guys! So what's the answer? Wish I had one! Now saying that, the one thing I did NOT do on this dive was leaving my deco bottle at the sign. It took no effort at all to swim a few more minutes into the system and "hide that puppy"! No big effort at all and I'm sure some of the regular cave divers could see the bottle but NOT some OW idiot or free diver looking to make a score. Read the latest post on the bottles that were "almost stolen" at Madison a few days ago. Do what is necessary to protect your stuff. We used to joke about diving Little River after dark and leaving someone with a shotgun to guard the truck due to all the bad guys in the area. Now the bad guys are in the water with us!

[JohnnyC]

Man, aside from feeling like a complete ass, if I grabbed someone else's bottle and breathed it down, I'd be waiting as long as it took to apologize and pay for the fills, all of his tanks, not just the O2. It boggles my mind that some people take no issue with doing #### like that, student or otherwise.

[kensuf]

No one would or could mistake this bottle for their own.

Your bottle does look unique with the jacket cover, but sometimes student divers are under stress and make simple mistakes. I've literally watched other people's students mistake:



for this:

[nakatomi]

I've literally watched other people's students mistake:

[...]

for this:

[...]

Yes, I tried that a couple of times but am still stuck with the red one...

[kensuf]

I didn't want to out you in public, but good on ya' for owning up to it.

[Aotus]

Ha!

[shellmoundal]

If you look carefully at my Deco Bottle you will see that it is impossible for someone to mistake it as their own. Student or not this was an intentional act. You have to remove the safety bag from the regulator in order to use it. Initials are all over it plus my name. I can see where a yellow tank can be mistaken as their own but when you reach for the regulator and it has a bag on it there is no doubt that the tank is not yours.
If in fact that the so called student tried to use the regulator with the bag on it I am sure they would find it a little awkward and would have some difficulty. Any Full Cave instructor would see the problem. I am sure this was not a student related incident. Look at my bottle again and you decide.
Trying to protect the cave community is great but this one is inexcusable.

[kensuf]

Al, if you look carefully, it's impossible to mistake a red L handle reel for a black sidewinder reel. But I've seen it happen.

[wingman]

The deco bottle looks a lot like mine, yellow, Mod 20, green reg hose, button pg, big stainless clips. Exiting it would be possible to swim up to that bottle give it a glance, grab the clip and clip to shoulder d ring not noticing the reg cover and head out the eye and then notice the reg cover after getting settled at 20' and at that point...I would have uttered an expletive and swum it back for the exchange....now another solo (a buddy would notice the error) diver who must have already had a large deco obligation given the gas used (could do the math on what sort of a deco obligation would require 1800 psi of O2; that would be a pretty big dive) faced a swim back to the sign to exchange bottles and chose to use it anyway and leave it....ignoring the potential consequences for the owner, that is unconscionable which leaves me leaning toward the free diver hypothesis which is also frightening thinking of them taking hits off your O2 bottle heading to the lips and back and finally back to the eye. Multiple people breathing off of it explains the gas consumption. Guess I will start parking my O2 bottle further in.